


things that might make a love story

by seoryoungs (orphan_account)



Series: rookie girls collegeverse [6]
Category: Cignature (Band), GOOD DAY (Korea Band)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/seoryoungs
Summary: "i'm ready to suffer and i'm ready to hopeit's a shot in the dark, aimed right at my throat, causelooking for heaven, found the devil in melooking for heaven for the devil in mewell what the hell,i'm gonna let it happen to me"
Relationships: Kim Jiwon | Jee Won/Kim Haeun | Ye Ah
Series: rookie girls collegeverse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1287743
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	things that might make a love story

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in like a day and it's unedited so just like... bear with me lmfao

Jiwon does not expect to see Kim Haeun in the front row when she walks into her 200 level gender studies class at the beginning of the spring semester. 

They had met - once, briefly - at orientation. Jiwon thinks they may have ended up next to each other at the honor code ceremony. Haeun is the sort of person Jiwon sees in the dining hall every couple of weeks and never acknowledges. Jiwon occasionally forgets she exists. 

But no, here she is in this gender studies course that Jiwon needs for her major, and, well. She  _ does _ know one other person in the room so far, but it’s Jeon Hyunjoo, and Jiwon has had a weird feud with Jeon Hyunjoo ever since a heated argument about feminist literature in one of their 100 levels freshman year. Hyunjoo and Jiwon are two of three gender studies majors in their year, the other one being Yoon Songhee, who desperately tries to make the two of them get along at department events. And, well, Songhee’s not here, so Jiwon supposes she’ll either have to make friendly with people or sit down next to Haeun and have a quiet semi-camaraderie already in place. 

She chooses the latter and sits down next to Haeun, who smiles. 

The professor goes over the syllabus and lets them go early. Jiwon falls into easy step beside Haeun as they leave the room. Haeun’s checking her phone pretty intently. After a moment, she starts giggling. 

“What’s up?” asks Jiwon. Haeun seems startled she’s there. 

“Oh, nothing, it’s just - this book he assigned. It looks like it’s a romance novel. Like not even academic, just a flat out romance novel.” 

Jiwon blinks, then sputters out a laugh herself. “God.”

“Yeah,” Haeun nods as they enter the dining hall. “Say, wanna get lunch?” 

It takes Jiwon a second to realize that Haeun means lunch  _ together _ . “I mean, yeah. We’re already here, so.”

Post-gender studies lunch becomes A Thing. One of those semester-long rituals you forget about after it’s done, like how freshman year Jiwon was in a group text with Lee Chaelin and Kim Bora and they’d always save each other seats at a half-booth in the back room at dinnertime and talk about homework or the noisy heating systems in the dorms or something else stupid, and then the group text just died when they got back to campus the next fall. That’s exactly how Jiwon feels about lunch with Haeun. A routine speedwalk from the humanities building to the dining hall at 11:15, quick grab of food and then hanging out for 45 minutes before Haeun has to catch a bus to Amherst for another class. And somehow this becomes adding each other on Co-Star and Jiwon checking her and Haeun’s compatibility horoscope when she wakes up in the morning. Somehow this becomes in-jokes about the weird shit they read in gender studies. Somehow this becomes walking Haeun to the bus stop and, as the PVTA leaves, running alongside it and waving, both of them laughing their asses off because that’s such a dumb romance movie thing to do and the student bus driver never fails to give Jiwon a weird look when she does it. 

Somehow this becomes whatever it is that happens at the end of February. 

The gender studies class walks into room 216 one fateful Thursday to find that whatever class uses the room before them had arranged the desks into a large circle. Whoever gets to class early - Jiwon has learned now that that’s Doi, one of the other majors in the class, and Chaeryeong, a peppy sophomore taking the course for fun and nothing else - must have shrugged and decided to leave the desks. Jiwon suspects they wanted to see how the professor would react, which tracks because their professor is  _ weird _ . 

It’s worked out thus far that Jiwon usually sits directly behind Haeun. She’s never been a front-row kind of girl and much prefers this arrangement because it makes it less obvious when she’s muttering witty side commentary to Haeun. With no steady rows and columns, however, Jiwon sits in the back of the room, directly opposite where the professor will probably end up, in front of the windows that let in the February chill. She hasn’t dressed warmly enough for this, though. She shivers, but when Haeun walks in a moment later and sits down next to her she decides it’s not worth it to make them  _ both _ move, and resolves to suck it up. 

Professor Sohn walks in, does a double-take, and elects to keep the desks the way they are, if only just for that day. Jiwon begins doodling in her margins. Little hearts mostly, and occasionally her name in cursive because on this day in particular she’s not creative enough to draw anything more. 

The class falls into a natural pause about halfway in. One of the sophomores, whose name Jiwon doesn’t know but who doesn’t have much of a filter, makes a comment about Haeun and another student having matching shoes. Jiwon looks down - the sophomore is right. Haeun and this other student are both wearing rose-gold sneakers with the exact same brand symbol, something Jiwon doesn’t recognize, on the outside. Professor Sohn points out that his water bottle is matching another student’s shirt. 

“There must be something in the air,” Jiwon says, leaning in towards Haeun. “Cause, y’know. People are matching.”

“It’s snow,” Haeun jokes, leaning towards Jiwon herself. 

“What?”

“Snow,” Haeun repeats softly. “Snow is in the air.” 

Jiwon’s eyes flicker up to the window, where, yeah, it is snowing. Then her eyes flit back down to Haeun’s. They share a laugh the two of them in on this little dumb joke about snow that no one else has heard -

and oh damn their faces are really close to each other. 

Professor Sohn starts the class up again, and the moment is over. Haeun is the first to look away. But Jiwon is still reeling. She had thought that whatever she felt about Haeun, it was just wanting to be better friends. That’s what she told her other friends, anyway. That’s what she’d told her roommate. 

Her heart is beating a million miles an hour and she stares down at her notebook. She writes her name in the margins over, and over, and over, to ground herself. 

“Gotta go to office hours so I have to catch the early bus I’m so sorry I’ll see you on Tuesday!” says Haeun, quick, when class is over, and she bolts out the door, leaving Jiwon to walk to the dining hall by herself, to process the fact that she likes Kim Haeun. 

Jiwon tries to hide it. She really does, she squashes it down so it doesn’t interfere with Tuesday Thursday lunch or the witty jokes she makes during class. But it’s hard. Haeun asks to borrow a pen one day and Jiwon about dies when she offers a pencil instead and Haeun says “no offense, I just don’t want a pencil”. She wakes up Yunji, her long-suffering roommate of two years, at one in the morning because she had been reading a particularly tender passage of fanfiction and had started crying because, dammit, she wanted to be held like that and she wanted Haeun to be the one to do it. She develops a near-vitriolic hatred of Kim Chaea, because she knows that Haeun and Chaea had dated for half a semester sophomore year. 

This last thing is rather difficult because Chaea is friends with Sunn, one of Jiwon’s friends, by virtue of them both being dance majors. It leads to some awkward latenight hangouts. 

She manages to hide it really well. She almost makes it to the end of the semester before it occurs to her that her feelings for Haeun might go away over the summer. 

It’s been getting warm outside. Jiwon has a Monday art history seminar in the history building with a ten minute break in the middle. The history building is right on the green and Jiwon’s developed a habit of eating, like, peanut butter crackers or something next to the big tree by the front stairs, sitting on the curb running around the edge of the green. She usually hangs out with Yeonhee, another art history major in her year, or Kwon Nayeon, who like Jiwon is doubling in art history and something else (in Nayeon’s case it’s computer science). They sit on the curb together and eat their snacks and sigh longingly at everyone lounging on their blankets on the grass once their time is up and they have to go back inside. 

One day the beginning of April, though, Yeonhee’s absent and Nayeon needs to run to the bathroom during the break, so Jiwon heads outside alone to make the most of the sunshine. She sits between the roots of the big tree and browses Twitter. 

“Hey.”

She looks up and Kim Haeun stands over her, newly-bleached hair falling around her face in a way that catches the sunlight  _ just _ right. She’s wearing a black romper with a little silver belt and she looks beautiful. Jiwon bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying so out loud. 

“Oh, hi!” says Jiwon. 

“It’s so nice outside,” Haeun proclaims, and then she repeats, “it’s so nice outside!” There’s so much joy in it. She wants everyone to know that the weather is good and that she feels good as a consequence and dammit Jiwon likes her so so much. 

“Yeah,” Jiwon agrees. “Wanna sit?” Haeun does so. “Just gotta warn you, though, I have to be back inside in, um.” She checks her watch. “Six minutes. My art history 300 gives us a break so that we don’t totally zone out before 4:10.” 

“I don’t have long either,” Haeun confesses. “I have rehearsal soon. Clown show.”

Ah, yes. Jiwon’s heard a lot about the clown show. A senior in the theatre department, Mizuki, was directing a self-written show about clowns and dogs and friendship for her senior thesis. Theatre kids are weird. But Haeun’s been cast, and she’s having a good time, so Jiwon puts up with the theatre-kid weirdness so she can see Haeun’s face light up whenever Jiwon remembers to ask about the play. 

“Oh right. Isn’t it tech week for you guys?”

“Yeah!” Haeun answers. “You’re gonna come see it, right?” 

“Yeah,” she says, “of course I am,” and then she goes back inside because class is going to start back up again soon, and because something upsetting has hit her. 

April means tech week means Mizuki’s thesis means graduation means the end of the semester. And Jiwon knows that she won’t be seeing Haeun for four months after they all go home. 

The thing about feelings is that they need to be fed. Jiwon’s feelings are fed with Tuesday Thursday lunch and an infinity of stolen glances during class, and maybe her crush wouldn’t starve over the summer, maybe it would survive on Haeun’s Instagram and Twitter and mornings checking Co-star and late-night daydreams just before Jiwon falls asleep, but it’s more likely that the daydreams will become less and less believable, turning greyscale in Jiwon’s mind until she can’t see herself and Haeun kissing behind the art museum anymore, until she can’t imagine how it might feel to be held by her. Jiwon as a person hates it when she’s not falling for someone. She feels less real, less defined. 

And she thinks it’s a darn shame that this crush will fade away without Jiwon ever having done something about it. Especially because, for the first time in a long line of attractions, Jiwon has a feeling deep in her heart of hearts that it’s possible Haeun feels the same.

Bringing flowers to the clown show may have been a bad idea. 

Jiwon thinks that it’s maybe a little late for that thought to occur to her, now, as she retrieves the bouquet from where she’d shoved it under her seat an hour before. They’re in the theatre and the show’s over. Chaesol and Selena rush to congratulate Mizuki on a show well done (or maybe they just want an excuse to pet Mizuki’s dog), and Ari and Hyeonju make a beeline for Bomin, another of Jiwon’s friends who’d been cast in the show. They leave Jiwon alone with her flowers, which are for Haeun. Of course they are. 

This is it. This is Jiwon’s plan, to tell Haeun she likes her. Of course, she could wait until the last day of gender studies next week, but she’d rather this be a little more romantic than a hurried conversation on the stairs of the dining hall, which is named SuperBlanch. Not the most romantic place in the world. If she’s going to make this leap she’s going to do it right. 

Best case scenario, Haeun likes her back. Jiwon doesn’t know where they might go from there. What’s most likely is that Haeun doesn’t, and the two of them go on their way, and gender studies is a little awkward for the two more classes they have left, and then it’s summer and they don’t see each other for four months and they come back in September and Jiwon’s feelings are gone and they can restart their senior year as friends, or maybe go back to people they see and don’t acknowledge in the dining hall. 

“Oh my god Jiwon, are those for me?” 

Jiwon is forced out of her introspection by Haeun, right in front of her, grinning. “Hey,” she tells her. “You were awesome.”

“Thank you! Thanks so much! Can I take these, I’m taking these.” True to her word, Haeun reaches out and pulls the flowers into her grasp. “What - did you guys get some for Bomin too, or? I don’t see-” 

Haeun looks around, and Jiwon sighs heavily. Well, this is her bed, and she’s made it. 

“Ah, no,” Jiwon shakes her head. She mutters to herself, “I’m going to regret this,” and forges on. “I, um. I really like you, Haeun. I know that buying you flowers and confessing to you like this is more than a little weird, but I didn’t want to just do it after class like that.” And her gaze drifts down to her shoes and it stays there, heavily, waiting. 

Of all the reactions Jiwon had thought she might receive, she had never considered that Haeun might cry. And yet that’s exactly what Haeun’s doing right in front of her. 

“Wh- oh, god, I’m sorry-”

“Shut up,” Haeun tells her fiercely. The other girl takes a deep breath, her blonde hair shuddering in time with her shoulders. “Dammit. Of all the - I never thought anyone would like me  _ back _ !”

“You-”

“Yeah! Shit, Jiwon!” Haeun starts laughing through her tears. “Ugh, I hate that I’m crying right now.”

Jiwon looks at Haeun. She analyzes the situation for a moment - Haeun, in front of her. Haeun, crying. Haeun, liking her back. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“Oh god yes,” answers Haeun, and then rushes in to do it herself before Jiwon can even get the chance. The way Haeun’s lips feel on her own is like release. 

**Author's Note:**

> oh god i have been DYING to write jeeyeah for ages but my finals are over and i have nothing better to do so here it is  
> am i coping with being kicked out of campus by writing college au? yes a little  
> i was a hacher shipper in the good day days which is why i made cherry/chaea haeun's ex in this one... a little nod to what could have been  
> here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/vivasunn) if you wanna talk to me


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